Modern communications and data networks, such as Ethernet based networks, are comprised of nodes that transport data through the network. The nodes may include routers, switches, and/or bridges that transport the individual data frames or packets through the network. Some nodes can forward the data frames based on their learned or provisioned filtering databases (FDBs). As such, the nodes forward data frames based on associated destination addresses (DAs) in the FDBs. If a node's FDB does not comprise an entry that matches an incoming frame's DA, the frame could be flooded on all the ports of the node except the one on which the frame was received.
In some data networks, e.g. in data centers, a bridge is used to couple a plurality of servers. As such, a server may communicate with other servers via a plurality of interconnected bridges to which the servers are attached. However, in current data centers, the quantity of servers continues to increase and may cause the capacity of the FDB in one or more bridges to be exceeded. As such, a bridge may not be capable of learning the DAs, e.g. the Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, that correspond to every server in the network and consequently may flood the data frames that comprise unknown DA's that are not found in the FDB. Such flooding can increase the amount of transported traffic in the data center and thus degrade the network performance.